Watching Jess Franco’s particularly crack-brained 1972 sexploitation cash-in on ‘The Devils’ and ‘Mark of the Devil’ for the first time, most viewers will be especially struck (and likely amused) by post-production supervisor Gerard Kikione’s decision to demolish the film’s almost shaky period setting via the application of masses and masses of pungent psychedelic rock… and lo and behold, all these years later, here it all is on vinyl, lovingly pasted together by Finders Keepers.

Largely pulled from French composer Jean-Bernard Raiteux’s ‘Trafic Pop’ album, the cues used for ‘Les Demons’ pulse with pungent, historically inappropriate jazz-funk beat-downs, alongside eerie piano meanderings, wistfully priggish flute/guitar concoctions, absolutely STINKIN’ fuzz-wah freak-outs and, well, everything that makes the early 1970s the unquestioned high watermark of Western civilisation, basically – all served with a generous side order of witch-finder ranting, witches’ curses, lashing, beating, screaming and, uh… more lashing, beating and screaming.

As was the case with some of Finders Keepers’ Jean Rollin soundtrack releases a few years back, the label’s presentation of the material will no doubt have many serious soundtrack aficionados grinding their teeth to a bloody pulp as a result of audio that seems to have been pulled at least partially from the film print itself, as is clearly signalled by the utterly gratuitous chunks of fruity English dub dialogue and sadistic sound effects liberally scattered throughout. Meanwhile, FK’s apparent decision to rename tracks previously featured on the ‘Trafic Pop’ album to reflect the scenes they soundtrack in the film seems decidedly questionable, and could no doubt raise further consternation from those aforementioned serious soundtrack types, together with much potential confusion for those of a scholarly disposition… but no matter.

For us more casual listeners, it’s lovely to have the chance to enjoy this stuff purely as a long lost Jess Franco OST, packaged and sequenced in entirely the manner it might have been had the great man’s terminally marginal, shadily distributed films proved a hot enough ticket in the early ‘70s to justify the release of their own historically inappropriate Tarantino-esque mass market soundtrack LPs.

Another instant room clearance device, a perfect Halloween party disc, a further chance to convince your neighbours that you’re a heinous pervert, or just another reminder of the singular world of creation that spun around the axis of that sainted sinner Jesus Franco – take it however you wish… but take it!

Buy directly from Finders Keepers here.

Labels: best of 2016, comps & reissues, Finders Keepers, Jean-Bernard Raiteux, library music, soundtracks

As far as my own peculiar interests go, the Finder Keepers label has been absolutely on fire over the past few years, both with a swathe of choice reissues and, more importantly, first-time-ever excavations of impossibly cultish film music that has never previously seen the light of day anywhere except within the reels of the films that contain it (and sometimes not even there).

Best not even get me started on FK’s current series of releases concentrating on my favourite ever Italian film composer Bruno Nicolai, or their single-handed attempt to salvage the reputation of Polish synth maestro Andrzej Korzyński (maybe those will be the subject of future posts here?), but for the moment, let’s simply say that if someone had told me back in the distant past of, say, 2011, that I would be soon able to obtain an almost complete collection of the music composed for French director Jean Rollin’s wonderful surrealist vampire movies, all pressed on vinyl and delivered to my door for fairly reasonable prices from a UK address, I would have dismissed their suggestion as the fanciful delusion of a disordered mind – the kind of impossible, acquisitive fantasy that someone like me would quite literally dream about. I mean, what kind of record label would possibly engage in such a foolish quest? From the Herculean task of tracking down the composers, the rights and the tapes, to eventually dealing with the fact that probably only a few hundred obsessives worldwide would actually have any interest in buying the results of your labours, the whole thing just sounds like madness. But now, somehow, it has ACTUALLY HAPPENED, and we have those bearded dream-weavers lurking somewhere in the general direction of Manchester to thank for it.

As such, it is high time I got around to discussing some of these records, even though it’s sort of verging onto the aesthetic territory covered by my other blog, and as it happens, 2014 has brought forth one of the most interesting releases yet in the Rollin series – namely, a whole LP of the music recorded by avant-jazz auteur Francois Tusques for Rollin’s astounding 1968 debut feature, ‘Le Viol de Vampire’.

You will of course have noted that the name on this LP, ‘La Reine Des Vampires’, is different from the name of the film in which bits of the music appeared, so in brief, and trying not to veer too much into Other Blog territory, the sequence of events goes a bit like this: ‘Le Viol de Vampire’, as it eventually appeared in 1968, was actually a combination of two films, the first a stand-alone short made under the ‘Le Viol..’ title, and the second a mass of additional footage that Rollin shot when the producer Sam Selsky asked him to expand it to feature length, in spite of the fact that he’d ended the first half by killing off most of the characters. So, whilst ‘Le Viol..’ (the first half of the finished film) was scored with a few well-chosen pieces of library music (including the rather lovely ‘Profoundeurs’ by Roger Roger, which Finder Keepers also put out as one side of a 7” on their Kreep imprint), the second half, entitled ‘Les Femmes Vampires, had a little bit more money behind it and thus featured specially commissioned music from Tusques. The working title of this second act though was apparently ‘La Reine Des Vampires’, and Tusques seems to prefer that name (or perhaps wants to use it to differentiate his music from its use in the film?), so et voila, the title of this LP. To further confuse matters, Rollin also reused some of the music, without Tusques’ permission, in his second film, ‘Le Vampire Nue’ (1970), but… well let’s not get too bogged down in all that, eh, since we’re here to discuss the music itself?

And verily, it is music that is well worth discussing, functioning very well as a standalone release that often sounds entirely unlike anything intended to score a horror film. Though far from a household name (unless you live in a REALLY hip household, I suppose), Francois Tusques was and is quite a big figure in the sphere of European jazz and free improv, with a CV that includes oft-mentioned collaborations with such luminaries as Don Cherry and Archie Shepp, suggesting that our man was a regular on the welcoming committees whenever America’s finest undertook one of their “fuck this, I’m going to Europe” relocation plans during the ‘60s and ‘70s. Tusques recently played a solo piano gig at London’s Café Oto, priced at £15 a ticket on the door, so for those in the know, he’s far from an unknown, that’s what I’m sayin’. And, outside of ‘the know’ as I may be in this particular instance, I can only assume that the music on this LP represents an important addition of his legacy, irrespective of its cinematic connections.

As far removed as much of it may be from anyone’s idea of a ‘horror score’ however, neither is ‘Le Reine Des Vampires’ a feast of the kind of honking, free jazz blowouts that the big names on Tusques’ resume might lead one to expect. As to what it IS, with these possibilities removed, well… I’m not sure where you might best file it really, but it certainly makes for engaging listening.

At a blind-taste-test guess, you could maybe say that it most closely resembles the kind of high-minded Free Improv that European jazz would involve into during the ‘70s and ‘80s, but it is slightly more “lyrical” and conventionally musical, less technique-heavy, than much of that music tends to be, despite the presence of a great deal of abrasive, skittering and clattering hoo-hah. In part it even occasionally reminds me of the bass and string playing on some of Albert Ayler’s recordings, if you can imagine such a thing existing in isolation from both sax and drums.

In the main then, this is largely string-based music, alternately doleful and impatiently energised, that seems to distantly grasp at the ghosts of melody and composition, but otherwise has broken away entirely from notions of classical scoring, leaving a weight of absence and uncertainty in its wake – like some insane string quartet in an darkened theatre, fumbling blindly into the unknown.

The origin of this unusual feeling lies in the unconventional methods Tusques used to put this music together, as outlined in the sleevenotes to the FK release. Apparently, his first step was to record a series of piano themes he had composed for the film. He then played these themes back to his musicians - Barney Wilen (tenor sax), Eddie Gaumont (violin), Jean-François Jenny-Clark & Bernard Guerin (basses) - via headphones, and had them improvise over the top whilst the tapes rolled. He then presented these recordings to Rollin (and by extension, to the world) WITHOUT the initial piano tracks, lending the remaining music a unique sense of emptiness and uncertainty, with the central structure around which the other musicians were building rendered invisible.

As a result, I suppose you could even question Tusques’ authorship of this record, given that neither his compositions nor his playing eventually appear on it, but maybe that’s a dilemma best left to music theory students with a lot of time on their hands; the ‘Le Reine Des Vampires’ pieces very much feel like music driven by a sort of unseen guiding hand, and in this capacity I’m more than happy to give Tusques his due.

The complete lack of drums or percussion, usually an essential inclusion on even the most far-out examples of jazz and improv from this period, further emphasizes the music’s sense of absence and otherness, leaving brief patches of silence scattered throughout. The overall impression is that of a figure dancing with an invisible partner (a Rollin-esque image if ever there was one), rising and falling with a strange, mad kind of theatricality at the whim of an invisible, unheard beat.

Deep cello-like tones and mournful, muted horn reminds me a bit of Mile Davis’s classic soundtrack to Louis Malle’s ‘Ascenseur Pour l'Échafaud’, and in particular, I wouldn’t be surprised if Miles in this mode was a big reference point for Wilen on the sax, as he repeatedly launches into these conventionally beautiful passages of moody reflection that are largely responsible for lending the music it’s more ‘lyrical’/melodic flavour. By contrast, Gaumont on the violin keeps knocking out these snatches of sorta jagged, Eastern European flavoured almost folk-ish kind of themes that add a great uneasiness to proceedings, meaning that, if I had to guess what kind of a horror movie this music belonged to, I’d probably be more apt to imagine some ‘Repulsion’-esque Polanski sort of business.

The unused and rejected themes on side two of the LP are particularly good in this regard, less tetchy and scratchy than those on the A, and more inclined toward extended work-outs of pure atmosphere. Church-like reverb and slight variations in volume are used by the musicians to send tones careening off through space, and, despite the sudden shocks, unsignposted left turns and collapses into nothingness that inevitably characterise this sort of improv, the music’s consistent abrasiveness after a while becomes quite comforting; for such a wild and avant project, it makes for surprisingly good ‘relaxing in the evening with a whisky’ type music. Muchly recommended, if this all sounds even remotely like your cup of… something a bit stronger than tea.

Listen & buy from Finders Keepers.

Labels: album reviews, Finders Keepers, Francois Tusques, soundtracks

Support Finder Keepers.

I’ve been a bit slow in getting ‘round to posting about this, but better late than never.

In brief, it seems that Finders Keepers, one of my favourite record labels, got well and truly clobbered by the recent PIAS warehouse fire. To try to raise some cash to keep themselves afloat, they’ve invited the great and the good from the groovier end of the British music world to compile a bunch of CD/mp3 compilations from the label’s back catalogue, available for just a few quid each from the label’s website.

You know that the label does lots and lots of fantastic stuff, and if you don’t, well this is a good opportunity to find out.

Don’t necessarily want to go all-out into treating record labels like charities, but let’s just say that if they were charities, Finders Keepers would certainly be in my monthly direct debits – just have a quick scan through their recent releases for an insight into why. And if all these setbacks delay their programme of Jean Rollin soundtrack releases even slightly, I’m gonna hold the whole world responsible.

Labels: appeals, Finders Keepers

Pierre Raph –
Jeunes Filles Impudiques 7” EP
(Finders Keepers)

Is this what it’s come to, Stereo Sanctity? Reviewing porn soundtracks?

Um, apparently.

As a teaser for their forthcoming extravaganza of Jean Rollin soundtrack reissues, Finders Keepers here present a 33rpm seven inch disc of music and sounds from 1974’s “Jeunes Filles Impudiques”, aka “Schoolgirl Hitchhikers”, the first of numerous ‘adult films’ made by Rollin under his Michel Gentil pseudonym to help pay the rent and finance his own, more personal films through the ‘70s and ‘80s.

Composer Pierre Raph (who also worked with Rollin on “Requiem for a Vampire”, “Les Demoniaques” and “La Rose de Fer”) provides the music, whilst a lively cast and some English language dubbing artistes provide the, uh, other stuff.

Side A kicks off with “Gilda & Gunshots”, a giddy confection of double-speed rock drumming, distorted whip sound effects (I guess they’re supposed to be the gunshots?) and orgasmic gasps and shrieks, warming up into a startling runaway train prog excursion with the addition of muted trumpet and a sinister, minimal bass line. Play it daily, and let housemates/neighbours know you mean business.

Track two is a forgettable bit of ‘sensual’ renaissance faire guff, but I like how it’s warm and fuzzy and crackly as if it were taped straight off a battered mono film print (which I guess it quite possibly was).

“It’s time for you to know that Jackie and I have, let’s say, a very… intimate relationship, and act unblushingly when we are together”, says the voice of the same woman I’m sure I’ve heard dubbing the female leads in dozens of Euro horror movies at the start of side two. Fair enough. I act unblushingly when I hear the dreamy combination of ‘Sketches of Spain’ horns, owl hoots and an incessantly repeated Hank Marvin-style guitar phrase that follows. Things wrap up with a jolly tune that sounds like the theme from an uncharacteristically light-hearted Spaghetti Western in which bandits probably grin straight to camera and dance with old ladies a lot, and we’re out.

Bravo, Finders Keepers!

And if you like the sounda that, the full soundtrack album for one of my all-time favourite movies “Le Frisson des Vampires”, as performed by forgotten French acid-rock combo Acanthus, is in the shops now, and by my reckoning is more essential than food.

http://www.finderskeepersrecords.com/

Labels: Finders Keepers, singles reviews, soundtracks, weirdness

SINGLES ROUND-UP: 2010 Thus Far, Part # 2.

Brilliant Colors – Never Mine b/w Kissing’s Easy (Slumberland)

New wax from Brilliant Colors is always welcome round here, and hopefully always will be, but arriving off the back of their brilliant LP last year, this little outing can’t help but seem, well… slight. Dialling back both the punk rock propulsion and brutalist fuzz guitar that made the album such a blast, these two brief tunes see the band regressing back towards the homemade, Beat Happening-y vibes of their early EPs. Not that there’s *anything* wrong with that of course, and they still hold it together nicely enough, but with most of the energy, charm and killer tunes that set them apart (and make this kinda shamble-core a good time generally) also somewhat lacking, this four and a half minute artefact that can’t help but seem rather half-arsed in view of what’s gone before. GREAT band, no doubt (I’m going to see ‘em in June, with Thee Oh Sees!), so I guess you might want to grab this if you’re a completist re: Brilliant Colors or Slumberland or cool pop groups in general, but for anyone whose primary interest lies in listening to the damn thing: get the album instead if you’ve not already; this is strictly leftovers.

http://www.myspace.com/brilliantcolorssanfrancisco
http://www.slumberlandrecords.com/

Lil Daggers – King Corps EP
(Livid Records)

Taking up the consideration of unguessable sociological/aesthetic shifts from my Flight review in the previous post, it’s worth noting that something very different is seeping into the water at the other end of the garage-verse from the shimmery, dislocated bliss-out we’ve recently come to accept as standard. Back down South, ideologically speaking if not always geographically, we can find an increasing number of groups swinging their lassos and taking the wild leap back toward authentically swampy roots rock drama, hanging onto some particularly fateful Dylan-via-The Gun Club axis of bluster, rattle n’ twang, and generating better results than you’d care to expect. Not that I’d want to get mixed up the journalistic dead-end of after-the-fact, thousand-miles-removed scene-building you understand, but sometimes you just gotta. Strange Boys, Demon’s Claws, The Mantles, Bridport Daggers… and now here’s Miami’s Lil Daggers, fitting right in.

Lunging around with a cataclysmic, red-eyed sound meant to be heard at a deafening whack in darkened, sweatbox clubs, Lil Daggers churn and weave in rabid Birthday Party fashion around a powerhouse drummer, duelling electric organs, frenzied string-bending guitar and bludgeoning low-end, howling through the requisite phone-line vocal filter about how they “hear the end is near”, in search of a constant, bloody climax.

For all that they’re covering distantly familiar territory here, this is still a pulverisingly BIG music, rich in an undeniable power n’ drama that belies the unimaginative band name, if you can only take a deep breath, say YES to the outlaw clichés, and let yourself get swept up in it. A lot of people were lurking about in this stubble-and-duster coats terrain back in the ‘80s, and god knows, a lot of people sucked at it. But this is 2010 buster, and if you still happen to be making movies about tough guys trudging ‘round the desert pointing guns at each other, get these dudes on the blower (probably the same one they do the vocals through) and they’ll be able to knock you up a real kick ass soundtrack full of holy fury and catharsis for you whilst Nick Cave and Warren Ellis are still lazing about in bed scratching their beards, wondering what the hullabaloo downstairs is all about.

http://www.myspace.com/lildaggers
http://www.lividrecords.com/

Octagon Control / Doctor Scientist – split 7”
(FDH Records)

My fault, this one. I took a chance on it just cos I like the cover photo, and think ‘Doctor Scientist’ is a really funny name for a band. The shop label said something about it being ‘synth-punk’, and I thought I could go for a bit of that good old retro-futurist fun right now – I’ve been catching up on a lot of vintage synth-heavy stuff recently in fact, and really enjoying it, so prob’ly about time I checked out what all these ‘cold wave’ kids are up to.

Oh dear – getting home and putting it on was like having to explain to an enthusiastic interview candidate that he’s applied for the wrong job.

“Uh, ok guys, I think we’ve got a misunderstanding here – see maybe it’s just me being a closed minded dumb-ass, but when I read ‘synth-punk’ and see a b&w photo of a girl with a goofy pre-Neuromancer VR headset, I kinda presuppose something that sounds a bit like The Screamers or Suicide or Gary Numan, y’know? That’s fair enough, isn’t it? You on the other hand, Octagon Control and Doctor Scientist, kinda sound more like bush league early ‘00s emo/metalcore bands who added a keyboard player for a bit of variety. I wish you well in your future quest for an audience who cares, but… well you see my problem, right? I’m sorry.”

Now I just feel all awkward.

http://www.fdhmusic.com/
http://www.myspace.com/doctorscientistband
http://www.myspace.com/octagoncontrol

Plasto Beton – 7” EP (SDZ Records)

Aah, now when I take a chance on some ‘synth-punk’ record in this day and age, THIS is more the kinda fucked up shit I have in mind. Not that these guys sound remotely like The Screamers or Suicide or Gary Numan or anything, but…

Well let me put it this way for you: French punk/indie/whatever type music has always seemed like pretty mysterious and fragmentary territory to those of us who’ve rarely gone out of our way to investigate, but you knew, didn’t you, that out there somewhere there’d be a whole gang of sick French fucks who worship Mark E. Smith and Throbbing Gristle and Pere Ubu, making horrible sub-underground type sounds infused with the grand perversity and defiance of their countrymen? Just stands to reason doesn’t it? And isn’t it a fine thing to think about of an evening?

Well duck you suckers, here they come – what seems to be more or less the same bunch of malcontents operating under such monikers as A.H. Kraken, The Anals, and now these guys, furiously mixing up dull-witted, ultra-repetitive caveman thud with chopped up Digital Hardcore noise-fuckery, random machine gun bursts, eerily detuned analogue synth tones and the kind of unhinged distortion pedal ranting that I daresay I wouldn’t be able to interpret even if I spoke French fluently.

It’s grotesque and upsetting and belligerent and wonderful, and I wouldn’t wish exposure to it on anyone who hadn’t specifically requested such in advance. Politicians take note: create a country characterised by strange and frustrating labour laws, new build suburban sprawl, mass unemployment, a rich but entropied cultural heritage and an uncommon reliance on nicotine, and sooner or later your youth will start making noises like this. Think on.

http://www.myspace.com/plastobeton
http://www.myspace.com/sdzrecords

Music and Dialogue from Sandy Harbutt’s Australian Motion Picture ‘Stone’ 7”
(Finders Keepers)

Seems pretty redundant to say “well this is a strange one”. Ever the pioneers, Finders Keepers throw caution to the wind and bring us a compressed burst of exactly what the title states, melted onto vinyl. I’ve been vaguely aware of Sandy Harbutt’s film ‘Stone’ for a while now re: it’s status as a landmark Australian exploitation/counter-culture artefact, and I enjoyed watching clips from it in the excellent Ozploitation documentary ‘Not Quite Hollywood’ last year. But if the evidence presented on this 7” is accurate, clearly I need to track down the complete movie ASAP, as ‘Stone’ sounds far-fucking-out!

Motorcycle engines roar through krautrock echo chambers; petrol tank explosions ricochet through slapback delay; morbid funk-rock blares; Australian bikies yell about worshipping Satan and initiating outsiders into the rites of their master. “Man, I love The Gravediggers – they are too cool”, says some guy in a pub, accompanied by strange, staccato musicbox jingles. “One night they came in here with The Orgasm; some of them had laid some really good acid on The Diggers, cos The Diggers used to travel with ‘em”… and so it goes on. “I guess we all just… CAME together”, says some drugged sounding girl. More echoed explosions. ‘Stone’, ladies and gentlemen – I can scarcely wait.

Quite what purpose this 7” serves is harder to quantify – would weirdo DJs drop this mid-set? Will people play it on their internet radio shows? Are cult movie fans gonna play this to their friends to convince them to watch the film? Or are malcontents like me just going to cackle over it in the privacy of their own homes? Overall the experience is similar to spending five minutes watching weirdo movie trailers on Youtube and then blinking and trying to bring yourself back to reality. And that’s something I like to find time for pretty much everyday, home broadband connections allowing, so HALLELUJAH, and thank you again Finders Keepers/B-Music – my life would be a far duller place without you.

http://www.finderskeepersrecords.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lloTd45PFPg

Yeh Deadlies – Magazine b/w Constitution Hill (Poltergeist / Fake Indie Label)

An absolute joy of a single from this Dublin group, prominently featuring Annie Tierney ex of Chicks on guitar and co-vox, so all you folks who helped make the post I did about Chicks a few years back this blog’s most popular item by a factor of about ten should clearly pay attention!

I very much enjoyed listening to Yeh Deadlies on myspace a while back, their predominantly gentle, folkie approach sounding rich and genuine and full of love, hitting the same sweet spots that the early Herman dune albums used to do for so well, and that 90% of modern ‘folk’ artistes manage to miss by a landslide. The best kind of folksie music, I think, is always the kind that sounds like it was made outside of consideration of any kind of music scene or industry, by some kinda generous and warm-hearted people who know each other well, just doing some songs with sounds and words that they like. It’s a difficult balance to maintain, but Yeh Deadlies seem to fit the bill perfectly.

So a single with a couple of examples of that on it would have been dead nice, no question, but imagine my surprise when ‘Magazine’ revs up with a punk drum beat, fizzy fuzz-tone guitar and a lead vocal from Annie herself, an absolutely beautiful nugget of super-optimistic, shambolic, sugar-rush, we-can-do-anything, distantly wistful, cardigan-wearin’ power-pop that bounces around like sitting on a freshly mown hillside with your friends on the last day of school in July, throwing chewing gum at passing cars… or something. Man, it’s almost as good as Chicks, or Mary Lou Lord, or pre-major label Kenickie, and only a *bit* more grown up. It’s so great I could cry.

The B-side, ‘Constitution Hill’ is really lovely too – more in the folksie sorta vein described above. I don’t have much to say about it; it’s about leaving a party prematurely and walking on a hill and feeling sad, and it’s approximately a hundred times better than every other song you’ve heard this year about walking on hills feeling sad. It makes me feel funny in my tummy, in the way these kinda songs are always meant to, but so rarely ever do.

Incidentally, the few real life Irish people I know are all apt to describe things as being ‘deadly’, in the same way we in this country would say ‘cool’ or ‘awesome’ or whathaveyou, so that’s presumably where these guys take their name from. I always find it really interesting, the way that slang like that does or doesn’t spread from place to place, the same way that some of the weird jokes and tricks and stuff that spread around the playground when you were at school seem to be universally recognised around the country, while others are meaningless to anyone who didn’t go to your specific school, and…. well anyway, who cares – please listen to this single, it’s really, really special.

http://www.myspace.com/yehdeadlies
http://www.myspace.com/poltergeistrecords
http://www.myspace.com/fakeindielabel

Labels: Brilliant Colors, Doctor Scientist, Finders Keepers, Lil Daggers, Octagon Control, Plasto Beton, singles reviews, Yeh Deadlies